“The idea of the Community Shared Agriculture (CSA) program is to invite you to become more than a consumer, to share in the risk that the farmers take on behalf of our food system,” says Charlene Tan, CEO of Good Food Community (GFC), a social enterprise that connects consumers with the farmers that grow their food. “It’s a program by which members can be part of farm operations by paying upfront for a share of the harvest and the farmer basically plants for this market in mind, these CSA members who share in the risk of farming. As a customer, you get a box of fresh organic vegetables every week, whatever’s in season, and of course, it’s organically grown and the farmer is assured of a stable demand because when they started planting, they already had the customers in mind.”
GFC clients “subscribe to a weekly basket of vegetables, and this in turn, enables the farmer to grow without worrying about having a market or not, and it allows the farmer to focus on what matters in farming which is your nutrition and the health of the soil and the system that feeds us.”
Tan shares that though GCF was formally registered in 2011, they had started talking to farmers as early as the year before. Right now, they work with several communities. They mainly work with the Chico River Organic Producers Cooperative from Bauko, Mountain Province, as well as farmers from Capas, Tarlac, and a small Dumagat community in Daraitan, Rizal. Here are some lessons she’s learned while on the journey:
FIND A GOOD TEAM
It is important to know from the start that it will be very difficult to go about an endeavor like this alone. A team made up of similar-minded people can help you set up your business and achieve your goals faster.
This story is from the October 2019 edition of Agriculture.
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This story is from the October 2019 edition of Agriculture.
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